1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to systems and methods of prescreening a potential borrower for one or more credit card offers, or offers for other financial instruments.
2. Description of the Related Art
Lending institutions provide credit accounts such as mortgages, automobile loans, credit card accounts, and the like, to consumers. Prior to providing an account to a potential borrower, or borrowers, however, many of these institutions review credit related data, demographic data, and/or other data related to the potential borrower in order to determine whether the borrower should be issued the applied-for credit account. In the case of credit cards, for example, credit card issuers typically obtain a credit report for the potential borrower in order to aid in determining whether the borrower should be offered a credit card and, if so, what rates and terms should be offered to the borrower. Thus, for any particular credit card, a first group of borrowers will be accepted for the credit card and a second group of borrowers will not be accepted for the credit card, where the size of the accepted group typically increases as the desirability of the credit card decreases.
Credit card issuers often send direct mail to potential borrowers, including invitations to apply for one or more of the respective issuer's credit cards. In some cases, characteristics of potential borrowers, such as credit related information, are reviewed in order to determine which borrowers should be sent the credit card offer. The potential borrower may respond to the invitation to apply by filling out a credit card application and mailing the application to the issuer. However, this process may take weeks, or even months, from the time the issuer decides to send the offer to the borrower until the time the borrower completes and returns the credit card application. Additionally, the received invitation to apply is from a single credit card issuer and, thus, any comparison of the offered credit card to credit cards from other issuers is done by the borrower.